


Of Monsters

by Tynytyg



Series: Of Monsters [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, I fixed some of it, So much angst, and a fiend, but I think that's all the ones whose perspective I actually used, debatably canon compliant, i am a liar, please read this anyway I worked hard, the dimimari is only there if you squint, the marihilda is onesided, the rest of the golden deer show up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:14:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25436749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tynytyg/pseuds/Tynytyg
Summary: The most significant anemone flower meaning is anticipation.  According to the Victorian language of flowers, anemone flowers also signify fragility. According to both Greek mythology and Christianity, the red anemone symbolizes death.–“Hilda?”A long beat of silence passes while Marianne disbelieves it. Hilda’s just making a really, terribly sick joke, and any moment now she’ll take another struggling breath, and everything will be alright. Hope and light will return to the world, represented as they always have been by the laughter in pink eyes. But it doesn’t. Hilda doesn’t move.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Marianne von Edmund, Marianne von Edmund/Hilda Valentine Goneril
Series: Of Monsters [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1842439
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	1. Myrddin

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thanks to my buddy Vesper (Azurite9925) for beta reading this, and a smaller but no less significant thanks to my Mom for letting me ramble about it to her over the course of the week-long writing craze that struck me along with this idea!  
> (Fair warnings begin now, if you don't want to know what's about to happen don't read this part: the mcd is Hilda, Marianne freaks out. The violence isn't terribly graphic, I think, but I do get some uncomfortable detail about Glenn's death which is magic and fire related, so if that makes you uncomfortable it's short but it's in the last chapter, the italicized bit that starts right after Dimitri says "the way he died..." and it's safe again when he says "Nobody deserves to die like that". And shoot me a comment PLEASE if there's something upsetting that I forgot to tag!)

The roar of battle presses against her, the clash of weapons on armor and hooves on turf. It’s nothing to the thudding of her pulse in her ears, thrumming away, repeating again and again “I am still alive.” She has come to be fond of that sound, lately. Once, it had been her enemy. 

She cuts down another soldier with Blutgang, the familiar clawing sensation of her crest activating scratching the back of her throat, tasting of blood and filling her nose with the scent of old forest loam, damp pine bark, and thick fur. Her battalion seethes around her, men and horses blurring into one entity, though outside of battle she knows every one of them by name. The professor’s voice rings out above the noise, and Marianne turns, eyes tracking their pointing finger. Raphael is bleeding at the front of their formation, limping from an arrow in one thigh and clutching his right arm to his chest. The claws of his gauntlets are gory, and he is splashed with the evidence of his combat prowess. She raises her hands, a physic spell glowing to life in front of her, and a beam of healing light shoots towards her wounded ally.

Raphael stands straighter, shakes out his arm, and grins over his shoulder at her as the blood stops flowing and his wounds knit together. The arrow in his thigh won’t start hurting again for another few minutes, but it will need further attention when this fight is through. 

“Thanks!” he bellows, and she musters a return smile for him before turning back to her work. 

Her arm aches from swinging her sword, her throat from the unaccustomed shouting of commands over the pounding in her ears, the base of her neck with the familiar strain of magic. She hits another enemy commander with an Aura as her battalion tears into his, and remembers how five years ago she would lay awake at night thinking of the anguished cries of those she killed. No longer. The sword in her hand sings to the crest in her blood and she’s learning how not to hate herself for the way that thrills her. 

There’s a flash of pink hair in her periphery, and an entirely different thrill runs up her spine. She turns, her lieutenant spears the man menacing her with his lance, and she watches a beautiful girl with pigtails and an absurdly large axe crunch into a huge man in armor. She’s obscured by the platemail-clad bodies of her battalion and Marianne’s heart stops for a moment before a cheer of “HILDA, HILDA!” rings out and she allows herself to breathe. The chant is taken up by the deeper voices of Hilda’s men, and Marianne grins. 

She turns to look for the professor’s next instruction with new energy, as she and her men fend off two attacks before their teacher can spare the attention to direct her forwards. She grabs Leonie's ankle and stops her from riding away just long enough to yank the remains of a broken-off spear from her horse’s flank and burn a heal spell to keep the poor thing on its feet. She wishes she could do more for his pain, and Leonie seems to instinctively understand this as she throws Marianne an apologetic look before galloping off. Marianne shakes her head and turns to watch her lieutenant’s back as he takes on an incoming axeman.

She fights, and heals, and reminds herself to breathe. She keeps her friends alive, and her men, mostly, and swings her sword again. And again. And again, the song of battle in her ears and the clawing of her crest in her throat. And then there is no one in front of her. She stands, panting, on the opposite bank of the Airmid river, The Great Bridge of Myrddin at her back, conquered. She turns and sees the professor with their bow pointed at Ferdinand von Agier, and watches with horrified fascination as the arrow arcs through the air. As he is knocked off the back of his horse. As he hits the ground, already limp. A sick thudding crunch carries through the now-still air. 

The world goes silent. 

***

Sitting on her camp cot in her tent, Marianne’s mind flicks back through time. Back to her days as a student at Garreg Mach, praying for an end to her suffering. Back to the day, standing in the cathedral, when Ferdinand had approached her. He’d been so earnest, always trying to embody nobility and strength. Their previous conversations stood between them like so much ballast, heavy and awkward, but that day he’d given her something to think about. 

_ A purpose to fulfil _ , he’d told her.  _ Everyone has something they are meant to accomplish. That is true for nobles, commoners, even bandits _ . 

She wonders if her purpose is to suffer. Is this truly what the Goddess ordains for her? To be the one left behind, again and again, as those Marianne cares about go to Her side? She finished crying for Ferdinand almost an hour ago, leaving her feeling wrung out and exhausted, but unable to sleep. Perhaps her purpose is to inflict suffering. She’d fought past Ferdinand, on the bridge, killed one of his men and looked up to see the pain and recognition in his face. 

“Mari?” A voice calls gently from outside the tent. Someone’s come to check on her. She can’t bring herself to answer, too weary even to speak.

“Marianne, we’re coming in,” a different voice this time, somewhat deeper and significantly firmer. A brief, whispered discussion behind the heavy canvas. She can pick out her name, and  _ to be alone _ , but apparently whoever wants to enter wins, because the tent flap opens and Hilda and the professor enter. She looks up at them with tired eyes, incapable of further reaction. This war has worn her down, grating against the softness of her spirit until there is almost nothing left. 

She knows what they see, looking at her–at least, what the professor sees; a weak, breaking soldier nearly useless from the strain of fighting. The strain that their other students seem to be bearing up under just fine, in fact, flourishing under in some cases. Marianne wishes she were Leonie or Lysithea. Wishes she were strong. 

“Marianne, you need to come out now,” they tell her. Order her. “You can’t spend all of your time in your tent. There are people who need you.”

Hilda favors the professor with a singularly unfriendly look. “Professor,” she begins lightly, but both the other people in the tent can hear the hostility in her tone. “Maybe you should go check on Lorenz. He was looking really droopy when we got back, and I haven’t seen him since. He was Ferdie’s best friend here, you know.”

They turn that inscrutable stare on Hilda, watching her for a long moment, assessing. Then they nod, and leave again. Leaving Marianne alone with the one person in camp she wishes wasn’t seeing her when she was feeling so… pathetic. The professor is right. She’s being self indulgent here, when there are people she should be out helping. She should be in the wounded tents with Ignatz, learning something, or at the training grounds with Leonie preparing for the next battle, or at the very least in the mess hall with Raphael, eating and helping the troops’ morale.

Hilda sits down on the cot next to her. Puts a hand on her knee, still clad in her stained, stinking battlemage’s robes. Her voice is gentle when she says, “The professor is a good battle commander, but they’re not always the best at comfort.”

Marianne shakes her head. She doesn’t need comfort, she  _ needs  _ to be useful. 

“You were close to him too, I know.” Hilda is so careful with her, hand squeezing softly, and for a moment Marianne pretends there’s more than friendship between them. Reality presses against the edges of her fantasy, and she brushes the dream away. No time for it, not during a war. “I saw you two talking in the stables and in the cathedral a lot. This can’t be easy for you.”

“And I saw you,” Marianne counters, “speaking over tea in the dining hall. Him doing your chores. Things like that.”

Hilda’s cheeks color faintly, and she turns her face away. “He was always very sweet to me. Him dying is… It’s a loss for the whole world.” She’s trying to hide her pain, but Marianne can hear it. She’s always had an ear for that sort of thing. 

“And the professor?” Marianne asks, because she’d seen Byleth cornering him to offer lance tips, or riding out of the monastery on clear days with him, Lorenz, and Sylvain. 

Hilda turns back, gratitude for the slight subject change flashing in her eyes. “They’re taking it hard, of course. They never really seem to get over it when they have to kill one of their old students. Ashe, in Ailell…” she leaves it hanging. They’d all seen the professor’s haunted expression after that mission, how they’d barely spoken for three days. How they lit a candle in the cathedral every week, spending an hour or more staring at the flame thinking of who knew what. 

“This hurt all of us,” Marianne says unnecessarily. She doesn’t want Hilda’s thoughts lingering on the image of their teacher kneeling before an altar, maybe-praying for their dead friends. She wishes she could tear her own mind away from it. 

“It does. None of us should have to bear it alone.” The firmness in Hilda’s tone wrenches Marianne back to the present in the way only she can. She looks at Hilda and a tiny smile involuntarily turns up the corners of her mouth. There’s no one she’d rather comfort, not in the whole world. 

“Alright. How can we help each other?”

“Well, I have some ideas about that!” Hilda says brightly, as Marianne knew she would. Apparently her ideas include organizing a group meal, dragging their friends from their respective corners of the camp to eat together and share memories. She dispatches Marianne to find Ignatz, Leonie, and Lysithea, while Hilda hunts down Claude, Lorenz, the professor, and Raphael. She changes clothes, washes her face in the basin some thoughtful person left out before she returned from battle, and sets out to locate her friends. 

Marianne finds Ignatz in the wounded tents, where they’ve all come to expect him to be after battles. He’s got a fair grasp of dark magic, but when it comes to healing he describes himself as “all thumbs.” So, in deference to the professor’s insistence that they all know the basics of white magic, he spends the aftermath of almost every battle learning from their overworked medics. The healers, for their part, are always glad of the extra hands, especially when they are attached to such an earnest and sincere young man. He is enthusiastic at the idea of more group bonding, and promises his attendance as soon as he’s finished helping out. 

Leonie is, of course, at the training grounds. She’s busily shooting little drawings of spiders, shuddering every time she takes aim. When Marianne speaks, she jumps and lets her arrow fly wildly off into the river. 

“Marianne! Don’t sneak up on me like that!” she pants, turning around with still-wide eyes. 

“I’m sorry…” Leonie shakes her head, interrupting Marianne’s downward spiral. 

“It’s alright, just… Goddess. I hope that arrow didn’t hit anything important. What did you need?”

“Hilda wants us all to eat together,” Marianne informs her, still looking at her shoes. 

“Sounds great, let me rinse off and I’ll be right there.”

She leaves to go find Lysithea, and honestly the youngest member of the Golden Deer could be anywhere. She might be at the magical practice grounds, almost on the other side of camp from the archery range. Or with her battalion, going over their battle formations. Or in her tent, studying the stack of tomes she insists on dragging along with them whenever they leave the monastery, arguing that “being at war is no excuse to give up on routine.” Or anywhere on the Great Bridge of Myrddin, examining the newly captured fortifications. 

Marianne tracks her, finally, to the bridge’s bathing facilities, where she’s standing under a stream of water long gone cold, still wearing her now-sodden battle robes. Her pale eyes are vacant, staring into space, and one hand rests on Thyrsus where it lies on a ledge just out of the water’s splash range. Marianne turns off the water. 

“Lysithea?” No response. 

She tries again. “Lysithea?” 

As if with an effort, Lysithea lifts her gaze to Marianne’s concerned face. “Yes?”

“How long have you been here?” She asks gently

Lysithea shrugs. “Not long. I was just rinsing off after…” A shudder wracks her small body, and Marianne remembers that the room must be freezing, especially since Lysithea is soaking wet. 

“It’s the Lone Moon, Lysithea,” Marianne hears herself chiding as she turns to get a towel. “You’ll catch cold.”

“I’m fine,” Lysithea protests weakly, one hand still on Thyrsus’s dormant haft, the other twining tension into the hem of her robes. “It’s not that chilly today.” A draft from the half open window makes her flinch, and Marianne doesn’t even need to glance at her to know the expression on her face is that stubborn, embarrassed look she gets when she assumes people are judging her for her age alone.

Marianne returns and wraps the towel around Lysithea’s quaking shoulders. She begins rubbing gently, trying to slow the shivers, but knows it’s not just the cold making her friend shake like that. “It’s alright,” she reassures, “I’m having a hard time with all the fighting too.”

“There was a boy…” Lysithea pauses, and Marianne makes an encouraging sound, still trying to warm the small body before her. “He was- he must’ve been younger than I was when I started at the officer’s academy. He came at me with a sword, and before I could think, I killed him. Dark Spikes. His blood went everywhere, when the magic pierced his body. It got…” Her delicate, pale hand finally releases Thyrsus, only to press to her mouth as her eyes squeeze shut, remembering. 

“It’s alright,” Marianne says softly, retrieving another towel and starting on Lysithea’s hair. “You’re all clean now. Hilda wants us to eat together. Can you be alone long enough for me to go back to your tent and get you a change of clothes?”

Lysithea shakes her head, eyes still closed. “The thing is,” she says shakily after a few seconds, “the way I felt when I was sure he was dead. It wasn’t pity, or sadness. It was… satisfaction. Like I’d-” she sputters, looking for an appropriate comparison, “like I’d finished organizing the library or something!” She shakes her head. “I used to feel bad when I killed. I think I miss feeling bad.”

The tone in Lysithea’s voice is heartbroken, and another moment passes in which she just stands there, shaking. She takes the towel around her shoulders, though, and begins to dry herself as best she can. Marianne stays with her, grounding her, providing the only kind of help she’ll accept, while she struggles silently with what this war has made her into. After a time, she nods. 

“Alright. Let’s go back to my tent. I’ll get changed, and we can go meet the others. And Marianne?” She looks up and over her shoulder. The look in her eyes is easier now, though not fully healed. “Thank you.”

Warmed by the genuineness of Lysithea’s gratitude, and by the sensation of accomplishment produced by actually being able to help someone, Marianne escorts her back to her tent and then to the mess hall, where they find the rest of the former Golden Deer already seated around one of the long, low tables. Claude welcomes them with a knowing smile, and plies Lysithea with sweets until she’s scoffing to hide her grin and shoving him away with one hand. 

The closeness of her friends, their familiar squabbles, the sheer live warmth of their bodies near her own heals something inside of Marianne. Hilda was right, they’d needed this. They stay at the table for much longer than they need to, long after the food has gotten cold and their drinks are empty (for the third or fourth time). None of them seem ready to break the spell that’s spread between them, one of good food and good company. As the evening wears on, Marianne watches the smiles become more genuine, the laughs louder, and the jokes more honest as the weary weight of the war seems to lift from their shoulders. 

She feels the effect in herself as well, feels herself loosening up with the comfort of the meal and the closeness. The professor rewards them all with one of their rare smiles, Claude’s grin actually reaches his eyes when Lorenz says something teasingly disparaging about his propensity for scheming, Raphael eats half of what’s on Ignatz’s plate although Ignatz swats his hand when he reaches for something off limits, Lysithea guards her peach sorbet from Claude’s questing spoon with violent imprecations, and Hilda’s bright laugh rings out over all of it. 

With these people around her, Marianne begins to believe that they can really win this war. They can all survive, and come out the other side, and forge a new era of peace. She still grieves for those they’ve lost; for Ferdinand, and Ashe, and for the soldiers on both sides who just want to protect their home. But something tells her, with Hilda sitting next to her laughing at one of Claude’s dumb jokes, Raphael on her other side bracketing her with warmth and wolfing down his third helping of meatballs, that it might all be worth it some day. 

She feels a small smile grow on her face, and thinks maybe it’ll stay with her a while.


	2. Gronder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hilda dies and Marianne cracks a little bit.

Marianne can barely feel herself scream. She tumbles off her horse and somehow crosses the distance between herself and the foot of the flaming hill with the vague impression of Claude’s voice calling her name ringing in her ears. She must cut her way through five or six Imperial soldiers on the way, but she hardly registers the blood taste on her tongue as her crest imbues her with the berserker strength she needs. When she reaches Hilda, the soldier whose sword is still buried in her chest hasn’t even realized he’s about to die. Blutgang rips him open from stomach to throat, and Marianne leaves the blade in his body as he topples over sideways. Let it soak in the blood it craves, she has more important things to worry about. She falls to her knees beside Hilda, whose eyes are foggy with pain, her breathing labored. 

“Ma.. Mari?” Hilda manages, breathless and raspy.

“I’m here, Hilda. It’ll be alright now,” Marianne promises recklessly. She knows better. The sword is definitely piercing a lung, and judging by the way it’s angled, it’s probably biting into her spine too. It would take Manuela’s understanding of medicine to remove it safely, and Marianne is proud of how far she’s come but she’s nowhere near as knowledgeable. She curses herself for devoting too much time to swordplay in recent months to focus properly on the healing arts. In the chaos that is this battle, Hilda’s battalion is down to half strength, but they’ve formed up around the two women and are guarding them against all comers. It won’t last. They can’t move Hilda like this, even if they had Marianne’s cavalry, and that’s still tied up across the field where the professor told Marianne to be. She has to do something, and she has to do it now. 

She has never wished more fervently for the Crest of Lamine or Cethleann. Hers was worse than useless, something instinctive in the dark part of her mind crying out to stand, to get Blutgang, and to kill everything that had ever tried to hurt Hilda. She stays, and puts one hand gingerly on the hilt of the sword buried in her friend’s chest. Hilda gasps, eyes squeezing shut against the pain of it. 

“Hurts...” she breathes.

“I know, I’m sorry,” Marianne babbles. “It’ll be over soon.”  _ One way or another _ , that dark part of her mind whispers. She begins to pull, slowly, doing her best to inflict as little damage as possible. The blade certainly tore through enough on its way in, she didn’t need to cause more hurt on the way back out. Hilda draws another shaky breath, tears pricking the corners of her closed eyes now. 

The last inch of steel pulls free, and Marianne flings the offending weapon to the side as if it was a red-hot brand. Blood gushes forth, staining the delicate pink of Hilda’s shirt beneath her armor as Marianne’s hands fumble with the clasps that hold the armor in place. She has to get it off in order to assess the wound, to know how to help..

A sad, wet chuckle tears itself free of Hilda, and she manages to say, “I’m… dying for someone else? I can’t believe this.”

Frantic, Marianne shakes her head. “No, no! You’re not dying! You’re going to be okay!” Her hands fly, opening clasps and prying the damaged breastplate away from Hilda’s body. She slits the leather cuirass up the side with her belt dagger in a motion she’s practiced in the wounded tents after every battle, and peels it off as well. It clings, wet with blood and sweat, and Hilda makes a hitching gasp as the shirt beneath pulls at the ragged edges of her wound. 

“It’s all going to be okay, I promise,” Marianne says, an edge of pleading in her voice, and presses her hands to the gaping hole. Pressure to slow the bleeding, because even healing magic can’t do much for blood loss. Then she calls up every bit of faith in her body, calling on the Goddess in her hour of need as she never has before, and presses a heal spell into Hilda’s chest. She feels the flesh shift beneath her hands. 

“I believe you,” Hilda gasps, eyes open so she can grimace at Marianne, a horrible parody of her usual carefree smile. “You’re a great healer-” her voice grinds to a stop and her eyes close again, her attempt to praise halted by the agony of her skin trying to stitch itself back together. Marianne expends another healing spell, and Hilda goes pale, gritting her teeth. A third, and that should take care of the worst of it, enough to move her to the field hospital.

“Alright, we’re going to get you out of here,” Marianne assures her, breathing hard from the effort of firing off three spells in quick succession and the sheer panic of trying to keep her friend alive. She looks up at the hovering lieutenant of Hilda’s battalion, who seems almost as scared as she feels, and nods. He begins bellowing orders, and when Marianne looks back down at Hilda, her eyes are open again. 

A tiny, kind smile crosses her beautiful face and Marianne  _ hopes _ . For a moment, she believes she’ll get this radiant, beautiful woman off the battlefield and somewhere safe, and she’ll personally nurse her back to health, and maybe, somewhere along the way, she’ll have the courage to tell Hilda about the feelings she’s been denying.

Which is what makes it hurt that much more when those eyes, the ones that had helped her out of one of the worst times in her life, darken and go vacant. A long, soft breath sighs out of Hilda, and Marianne feels it beneath her pressing hands. She doesn’t inhale. 

“Hilda?”

A long beat of silence passes while Marianne disbelieves it. Hilda’s just making a really, terribly sick joke, and any moment now she’ll take another struggling breath, and everything will be alright. Hope and light will return to the world, represented as they always have been by the laughter in pink eyes. But it doesn’t. Hilda doesn’t move. The two burly armored men who separated from the protective formation to carry her stop and look down at their commander with expressions as bereft as Marianne’s. 

“Hilda?” She asks again, voice almost inaudible against the continuing din of battle raging around them. Marianne has no ears to hear it, no eyes for the way Hilda’s men seem to shudder as a fresh wave of Imperial attackers round the hill. The rest of the world has ceased to exist. In this moment, there is no battle. No war. No Professor shouting for their dedicated healing unit to help Ignatz’s burning battalion. No Claude crying Hilda’s name from the back of his white wyvern, twenty feet in the air above them. Nothing but the limp form in her arms. 

Then.

“No,” she breathes. She closes her eyes, opens her heart, and presses her hands to Hilda’s chest again.

“No!” This time a shout, as she feels the familiar warmth of faith magic building in her shoulders, coursing down her arms, and pouring into her hands. She shapes it, tracing the image of a healing rune in her mind. She calls on all her power, her crest clawing its way into her throat again as the musty smell of warm, dry fur fills her nostrils, comforting her. The taste of blood on her tongue is overwhelming and she wants to spit, but all her attention is focused on this. She holds the spell in her hands, letting the strength of her faith and her grief build and build. When she releases it, the blast of white magic is strong enough to send soldiers stumbling in all directions. 

Hilda doesn’t move. 

Marianne begins to call up her power again, undaunted. She won’t let this happen. She’ll die before she lets Hilda leave this world. Hilda, who always says she’d never die for someone else. Hilda, who doesn’t want to be in this war at all. Hilda, who has a family and friends and lovers, probably, waiting for her back at the monastery. Hilda’s life is more important than Marianne’s; had always been. Even back in the days when they were all carefree students back at the academy. Even now, when she believes her own life is actually worth something after all. She’d always known that she would die for Hilda, if the occasion arose. 

The time is now. 

Another spell, and this time the pulse of it knocks Claude’s wyvern to the side as he tries to swoop in and do- something. Marianne doesn’t care what his plan was. No one else needs to be caught up in this, so she’s glad the spells are pushing everyone away. Allies and enemies alike are thrown bodily back from the two of them as her magic builds. She realizes she is crying when a tear falls and lands on the back of her hand. Soon, it is accompanied by many more. The roar of battle is replaced by the howling of the beast that lives in that dark corner of her mind. The beast she’s spent so long pretending isn’t there. It throws its strength into her magic now, and a wind begins to whip the stray hairs that have escaped her braid. 

She will save Hilda, or she will die trying. It’s as simple as that. 

***

The wind grows stronger, whistling around Marianne and Hilda. Byleth stumbles forwards and catches Claude as he’s thrown out of his saddle, his wyvern landing heavily a few meters away. The battlefield freezes, in the cacophonous way that several hundred men stop mid-fight, to stare at the blinding flashes emanating from the hill. Byleth fears it’s another of Edelgard’s tricks, but Claude tells them it is something else entirely. 

“Hilda’s down,” he pants, straightening out of their hold. “Marianne’s trying to save her, I think that’s her magic.”

Byleth can feel the pulse of it, coming slowly but steadily like the beats of some great drum. Immensely powerful, wild magic, it presses against their senses like heat. “It’s definitely her,” Byleth confirms, stunned by the sheer intensity of it all. “She’s going to burn herself out if she keeps this up.”

Claude, with no magical ability to his name, can’t sense the power itself, but he can read Byleth’s face, and he can feel the change in the atmosphere on the battlefield. “So we stop her?”

“If we can.” They squeeze their eyes closed and will the purple-black haze of Divine Pulse to take them back to the beginning of the battle. Nothing happens. Byleth opens their eyes again, teeth grinding together, knowing they’ve come to the end of their strength. There’s no changing the way this plays out, this time every decision is permanent. They haven’t reached this point before, always able to find a clever way to keep everyone alive.

_ Sothis’s voice, familiar and sad, saying “if turning back the hands of time was not enough to save him, you must accept what came to pass was fate.” Their father, lying on the ground in the rain, head cradled in their lap, looking up at them crying and smiling.  _

_ “To think that the first time I saw you cry… your tears would be for me.” The crushing weight of realization, of the fear that he didn’t understand how much they loved him. How much they needed his solid presence at their back. The pressure of more tears prickling at the back of their eyes as they railed against the idea that there was nothing they could do. _

_ Ah, _ they think,  _ I’d almost forgotten what real fear feels like. _

Claude nods and turns back towards the hill. He squares his shoulders and starts marching in that direction, grabbing every Alliance soldier he passes and sending them back to their lines. Byleth swears and follows him, slinging their bow over their shoulder and shouting for Yuri to take care of the men, and Constance to get airborne and keep an eye on the enemy. They watch long enough to see Constance pull Hapi up behind her and launch skyward while Yuri takes Byleth’s place at the head of their battalion. 

They can hear him shouting the retreat, even as they chase Claude towards the hill at the center of Gronder Field. He can’t feel the power emanating from Marianne, but he knows as well as Byleth that there won’t be any stopping her. However, Claude’s hope springs eternal, and Byleth won’t let the optimistic fool get himself killed. They approach the locus of the growing magical storm, and Claude slows as Marianne and Hilda come into sight. 

The two women are surrounded by dropped weapons, and there are a few bloodied bodies at the edge of the bubble of magic created by Marianne’s desperate casting. Blutgang is still buried in one’s chest, and Byleth considers picking it up. Something in the back of their mind, maybe Sothis’s lingering influence, stops them. The blade seems… angry. It’s never made Byleth very comfortable, but now it feels actively malevolent. They can’t bring themself to touch it. 

Claude, focused on the girls, doesn’t notice Byleth’s brief internal struggle. He is busily picking his way through the strewn equipment and dead bodies, approaching the shimmering edge of Marianne’s magical radius. As he does so, the radius slowly extrudes, approaching him right back. That doesn’t sit well with Byleth either, so they start after Claude. 

“Marianne!” Claude shouts, trying to be heard over the growing shriek of wind and spellwork. “Marianne! Stop this! You’re going to kill yourself!”

Byleth eyes the still, blue-clad form sitting in the center of the maelstrom, and picks up their pace, trying to catch Claude before he reaches the edge. Something tells them it would be very bad for the leader of the Alliance to touch that swirling magic. They trust Claude’s judgement, but aren’t sure how much of the chaotic power he’s actually able to perceive. 

He stops a few feet short, at least aware enough to stand back that far. He considers the distance between himself and his friends, glances back at Byleth, and takes a few more steps further. Then he knocks an arrow to Failnaught and draws, aiming against the spinning magic, and looses. The arrow thuds into the ground to Marianne’s left, missing her by almost a foot.

She doesn’t react. 

Byleth reaches Claude’s side and puts a hand on his shoulder. “You’ll have to hit her, if you want her attention,” they say directly into Claude’s ear. “She’s too deep into the magic now, nothing else will work.”

They watch the heartbroken expression enter his eyes, and watch as he immediately seals it away behind his “Leader Man Face”, as Hilda had called it. He knocks another arrow. The edge of the magic bubble approaches. Byleth watches it warily, uncomfortable with its proximity. Claude looses again, and this time the shot catches the edge of Marianne’s skirts, pinning it to the ground. 

He swears, expression grim, and Failnaught glows to life in his hands as he calls on the Reigan Crest and his relic’s power for accuracy. As he draws a third time, his arm shakes slightly. Byleth puts their hand on his shoulder again, and he steadies. A long moment passes, and the edge of the bubble grows nearer. After an interminable period, Claude lets out the breath he’s been holding. He eases the bow down, eyes on the ground, and its glow quiets. 

“Let’s get everyone out of here,” he says, voice barely audible. Byleth nods, accepting his decision, and turns on their heel. They lead their student-turned-leader back out of the immediate area and begin martialing their allies. Ignatz and Raphael have already rejoined the main force, and are helping direct the groups searching Gronder for the wounded, trying to get as many soldiers as possible off the field. Lysithea is standing guard with her mage battalion, holding Thyrsus and watching the retreating Imperial forces with icy eyes. 

Lorenz is leading his horse, almost alone but for a trio of mages following him, one barely moving form draped over his saddle as he picks his way back towards the healers’ tents. There is a haunted look about him that hurts Byleth’s heart to see. Leonie spots them and rides closer, leaving her battalion with Balthus, who is more than comfortable directing them in rounding up any enemy soldiers trapped in this quarter of the field who’ve chosen to surrender rather than fight to the last. 

“What’s going on, Professor?” Leonie demands as soon as she’s close enough.

“Marianne’s lost it,” Claude answers for them, still trudging towards the retreating Alliance soldiers. “Ride back to the lines and get your people moving.”

“What do you mean ‘lost it’?” She persists, ignoring the order. “And where’s Hilda? What about the battle? Are we just abandoning the field?”

“Get your men, Leonie, we’re getting out of here.”

Something in Claude’s tone stops her stream of questions, and she slides down out of the saddle to stand in front of him. “Claude,” she says, putting out a hand to touch his arm, “what happened?”

He just looks at her with eyes like the end of the world, and Byleth knows it’s time to interject. For the sake of Claude’s dignity, if nothing else. 

“Hilda’s dead,” they say, trying to keep their words as gentle as possible. They’re not good at this, and they’re honestly glad it’s Leonie they have to tell, and not someone more sensitive. “Marianne isn’t taking it well. That crazy magic going on at the hill is her. We can’t get her attention, so we’re getting out of the way. Nothing can touch her now.”

Leonie stands there for a moment, stunned speechless. Only for a moment, though. “Hilda’s... dead?” She asks, the look on her face uncomfortably reminiscent of that ghastly week right after Jeralt’s death. Byleth just nods. After another long pause, she nods back decisively. “Alright. I’ll start moving people. Claude, you’d better get back on your wyvern, the men need to see you in the air.” She turns away and swings up onto her horse in a smooth, fluid motion. 

Claude takes a deep breath as she rides away, closing his eyes for a moment. Then he’s Duke Reigan again, striding across the battlefield to find his mount and inspire his men. Byleth follows in his wake, a teal shadow issuing orders and chasing down their errant students. Lorenz, once he’s deposited his wounded men, is almost as difficult to convince to retreat as Leonie was. Raphael, Ignatz, and the Ashen Wolves, blessedly, obey orders without arguing. Byleth almost has to pick up Lysithea bodily to remove her from her post, but they value their life and after a brief consideration choose to believe that the keyed up mage might actually incinerate them if they try. They end up leaving her to her battle-weary lieutenant, an older man from Ordelia territory who has known her most of her life. Somehow, he persuades her to move. 

By the time the Alliance is regrouped and leaving the field, the bubble of magic has stretched to envelop a huge area. Looking back, Byleth’s sharp eyes find Edelgard. Across a bloodied battlefield, dotted with dead soldiers mostly in Kingdom livery, they meet the gaze of the would-be Emperor of Fodlan. 

_ She looks tired, _ they think irrationally.  _ Of course she’s tired, we’re all tired. Tired of this war she started. Doesn’t change anything. The deaths of this day are laid at her feet. All of them. _ Byleth’s mind rushes back to the thirteen times they’ve tried this battle. Thirteen ways they’d seen their students killed and maimed. Thirteen repetitions of the same hour of combat, and Byleth more exhausted and blood-sick each time.

Lorenz’s body, broken beneath his horse, face twisted in an expression most unlike him. Ignatz, screaming as he burned, standing on the hill Edelgard had set aflame. Lysithea, looking down in shock at the lance running through her stomach. Hilda, backlit by purple energy, frozen in one last carefree laugh. Claude, falling from the sky like a comet, hitting the earth with a heart-rending crunch. And the deaths, variously valorous and horrible, of countless Alliance, Kingdom, and Empire soldiers. None of the fourteen possible ways this day could play out had ended with everyone Byleth loves surviving. The variations spin, over and over, in Byleth’s head, and they lay the blame for all of it squarely at Edelgard’s feet. 

A quiet, burning rage settles in their chest as they meet those cold purple eyes. They swear to themself, there at the edge of Gronder Field, that they will see this Emperor fall. They’ve been following Claude’s dream thus far, but now they have a goal all their own. Edelgard will pay for this… this  _ waste. _

Byleth turns away, and so they don’t see the flash of black and purple light as Hubert appears next to his emperor, or the identical one as both of them vanish. They also don’t see the flowers beginning to grow at the edges of Marianne’s magical force bubble. Anemones, pink and blue. 


	3. The Forest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we diverge from canon, and explore the results of Hilda's death and Marianne's reaction

Claude spends the rest of the day alternating between pacing around the sand table in the council tent and visiting his wounded soldiers. Lorenz, whose battalion had been hit the hardest, is always waiting for him when his guilt drives him back to the medical tents. He walks with Claude, providing what comfort he can. Claude struggles to reconcile the mature, responsible man beside him with the annoying, callow young noble he’d hated back in school, and he’d watched Lorenz grow up. He makes a wry face, thinking about how jarring the transition must have been for Teach, for whom it had happened in a day. 

“Something amusing, Claude?” Lorenz inquires, bringing him out of his thoughts. 

“Just you, as usual,” Claude quips back lightly, his charming grin returning to his lips like a reflex. 

Lorenz frowns at him. “You know you don’t have to hide from me anymore,” he says severely, the disapproval almost–but not quite–hiding the worry and hurt in his eyes. Claude knows him too well for that to work. And, he realizes with a slightly uncomfortable start, Lorenz understands Claude right back.

“I know,” he says, scratching the back of his head and letting the practiced smile fall away, revealing just enough emotion to get Lorenz to relax. “Sorry, my friend. When I’m upset, I revert to old habits, I guess.”

The disapproval fades, replaced by worry, but not the hurt he’d seen before. “I’ve noticed. Usually bad habits, like pretending you’re not feeling anything and being rude to me for no particular reason.” 

“Oh, I can always find a reason to be rude to you, Lorenz,” Claude says, with a slight smile that actually reaches his eyes. Sniping at each other is an old game by now, comforting in its familiarity. Lorenz isn’t nearly the proud noble he’d once been, puffed up on his own importance. Now he’s just an old friend, trying to provide some semblance of help in a time of need. 

Claude’s mind slips into the well-worn rut of “what if.” Would his friends and allies still care about him if they knew who he was? Would they all turn on him, if he revealed himself now? He’d taken a gamble, telling Teach even as little as he had about his life growing up, and that hasn’t seemed to change their opinion of him. But Teach is notoriously hard to read, even for him, and his mind races away from him, telling him that everyone is a danger.

Lorenz’s hand on his shoulder stops him before he can go very far down that path. “Claude. Whatever you’re thinking of, stop it.”

Claude grins up at him, tilting his head to the side to see around the fall of purple hair. “You know me too well.”

“I simply take time to understand my allies,” Lorenz says, with none of the sharp sound of defensive pride that would’ve marked such words a year or two ago. Then he adds, “you in particular.”

Quirking an eyebrow at that, Claude turns away and keeps walking. He chooses to leave it there, because anything more will broach a conversation that he is way too exhausted to have right now. Lorenz follows silently, seemingly content to let it lie. They walk into one of the tents dedicated to resting soldiers, and find some of Claude’s battalion of pegasus knights. He greets the ones who are awake by name, offering them smiles and what comfort he can. He can’t give them answers, not the ones they need, so he keeps his visit brief. They seem cheered by the time he extricates himself, and he’s glad he could provide at least a little help to someone. The gods know he hasn’t been particularly useful this afternoon. 

Lorenz drops away when Claude leaves the medical tents, murmuring something about checking on his men, and Claude doesn’t mind the solitude. When he gets like this, sometimes it’s better to be alone. Usually, however, Hilda will come and save him from himself before too long, insisting he help her with some minor task she doesn’t feel like doing herself. He realizes with a sinking feeling like lead in his throat that she’ll never do that again. 

That’s when it hits him. Hilda will never laugh at one of his dumb jokes again. Never greet him with an irreverent gesture and a disrespectful comment. Never try to braid his too-short hair or make him new earrings. She’s gone. 

Claude finds himself outside her tent. His eyes are blurring with tears he can’t let his men see, so he ducks inside. It _smells_ like her. A mix of rose petal perfume, sweat, axe oil, and the fruity soap she used for her hair, the scent of which somehow always managed to survive even the worst battle. Her things are still strewn about haphazardly, wherever they landed when she came in. He begins, almost automatically, to straighten up. She hated when her quarters were messy. 

He picks a few long strands of pink hair out of her brush before setting it down on her travel chest. Puts away her beading tools neatly, closes up their case, and stows it in her trunk. He folds a shirt she’d left draped across her folding camp chair, sets it on her cot. The first tears don’t fall until he sees the Almyran charm to ward off bad dreams he gave her, hanging from the tent post above the bed. It’s a little thing, woven of pale fibers and a few pink glass beads, but he’d made it himself, and she’d hugged him for it. He sits down on her bed and puts his head in his hands, and for the first time since Teach reappeared at Garreg Mach, he allows himself to cry. He lets his calculations slip away, and weeps for his friend.

***

Gronder Field pulses with white magic, again and again and again. The bodies of soldiers, horses, pegasi, and wyverns are consumed by the shimmering bubble of energy which engulfs them silently. The bubble expands a few inches with every heartbeat thrum of magic, swallowing up the whole battle-scarred plain. Then, with the awful, almost-silent sound of something fragile and precious finally breaking, the magic abruptly subsides. 

The sun beats down on a hip-high hedge of anemones, blowing in the gentle breeze. They tangle together, creating a mess of stems and leaves that discourages any who might think about entering. The ones towards the edges are palest pink and blue, mixed in with one another and seeming happier that way, but the flowers covering the hill in the center of the field grow thick and blood red. 

As the day wears on, trees begin to grow up amongst the pink and blue blooms. Just saplings at first, but reaching upwards and thickening at an astonishing, unnatural speed. They spear into the heavens, branches reaching out for each other and forming a dauntingly thick canopy in a matter of hours. The flowers recede, replaced by thick hedges, vines, and thorn bushes. A forest fills the breadbasket of Fodlan over the course of an afternoon. 

By the time the sun is setting over the now thickly interlaced trees, local farmers have started to emerge from their homes and hiding places to investigate their livelihood. It is therefore a farm boy, maybe twelve years old, who arrives, panting, at the Alliance encampment, asking to talk to Duke Reigan. He gets Byleth instead–much to his apparent relief–because no one seems to be able to find Claude. Byleth has a guess as to where he is, but they know if they’re right, he needs to be left alone. So they handle the problem. 

“There’s a great big forest where the field was this morning!” The kid reports, still out of breath, when Byleth sits him down in the mess tent. 

“Eat,” they instruct, following their own advice. “Then tell me everything.”

The boy tears into the food. Apparently, he and his family have been hiding in the cellar of a neighbor’s farm since the big blocks of troops started forming up, and he hadn’t had a decent meal in days. The families have been sharing what they could store on short notice, which wasn’t much, and the story gives Byleth half a mind to start sending patrols out into the nearby countryside to find and feed local commoners who are too scared of the armies on the move to take care of themselves. 

They finish their dinner, and the kid begins telling what he’s seen. “This afternoon it was just bushes, but now it’s whole trees!” He cries, waving his hands to indicate the size and sturdiness of the trees in question. “They’re real too, my older brother climbed one just to be sure! Right where the field used to be. My pa’s a farmer. Don’t know what he’s gonna do, now that Gronder Field’s all swallowed up by a forest. Never seen anything like it, either! Forests don’t get all big like that so fast. Ma says it’s gotta be magic.” With this, the boy looks hopefully at Byleth, like he’s hunting a confirmation. 

Byleth gives it to him. “Your Ma’s probably right,” they say solemnly. “You should listen to her. What did she say to do when you’d told Duke Riegan what happened?”

The kid looks guilty now, glancing down at his folded hands. “Run on back home,” he replies, all the wind taken out of his sails by the reminder of parental authority.

“Then why don’t you come with me, and we’ll get you a ride home on a wyvern?” Byleth suggests. This perks the farm boy right up, as Byleth had suspected it would. When they were that age, they’d have given their left arm to ride on a wyvern, and that was before they’d learned to fight with their right hand as well as their dominant left. They offer the kid the small smile they’ve found surprisingly effective in gaining people’s trust, and get up to lead him off to the wyvern riders’ side of camp. He practically bounces the whole way, and when Byleth finds an obliging soldier willing to give the boy a lift home, they can see the hero-worship in his eyes. 

The growth of a forest in Gronder Field warrants an investigation, so Byleth climbs onto Claude’s wyvern and lifts off. They’d convinced Seteth to give them enough flying lessons before the whole world had gone mad that they were competent, and they won’t believe this particular story unless they see it with their own eyes. It isn’t that they suspect the kid of lying–far from it, they’d seen the conviction in his eyes–but it’s just such a strange, unlikely story that they can’t accept it without seeing it. So they fly the couple of miles back to Gronder in the moonlight to survey the wreckage themself. 

Nothing could’ve prepared them for the sea of trees they fly over. Here and there, a gap between the thick branches gives a glimpse of flowers, and a small clearing in the middle of it all gleams redly in the waning moon’s dim light. Byleth can make out few other details, but the forest seems ominous to their strange second senses. Whatever is left of Sothis causes a wave of dizzy drowsiness as Byleth makes their first pass over the trees, and they decide not to attempt it again. They skirt the edge of the forest, their usually excellent night vision seemingly thwarted by the shifting shadows beneath the trees. When they turn Claude’s white wyvern back towards Myrddin and the Alliance camp, a cloud drifts across the moon and the branches whisper ominously in the dark. 

***

The farmer’s name is Curan. He lives in his parents’ house at the edge of Gronder Field and works for Count Bergliz to tend and harvest the vast quantity of food produced in that historic place. When the armies began gathering two weeks ago, he and his family had moved into a cave in the local rock quarry, along with three other farmer families. They’ve been there ever since, rationing out the food and trying to keep their fires small enough not to draw the attention of the roving groups of military scouts. They don’t expect much to be left when they get back, but what he finds when he arrives at their home is beyond strange. 

The house is still standing, though the door is broken in and their things are tossed about haphazardly, as if several scouting parties had rifled through the building. Oddly, there is a blanket-wrapped bundle of their meagre valuables–his mother’s two place settings of silver, his father’s wedding ring, and the collection of semi-precious stones he’s spent the past ten years picking up wherever he could find them–sitting in the middle of the dining table. A hastily scrawled note is written with a charred stick directly on the wood of the table. 

“Dirty impereal basterds tried 2 steel yer stuff. Cominers got 2 stick 2gether. Take care. Alliance Squad 72.”

Curan smiles at the note, and picks his way through the broken chairs and tossed pots and pans from the back door to the front. He heads outside to survey what’s left of the fields of grain he and his father had spent laborious hours planting, weeding, and tending alongside the thousands of other small farming families in the area, and finds a forest. The spring wheat he expects to see almost knee high this late in the Great Tree Moon, waving in the morning breeze, isn’t there. Not even the bloodied, crushed stalks his father had spent the last two weeks moaning about. Trees, fully grown and madly tangled. Ten feet from the front door of his house. 

_This has to be some sort of illusion_ , he thinks. Forests don’t appear in the course of a few weeks. He knows enough about trees to know that even a quick-growing local species like the red maple only grows about three feet in an average _year_. Fully grown black pine trees certainly don’t spring up naturally in Bergliz, and they don’t do it in less than a month. Black pines are native to Edmund, in the Alliance, if Curan recalls correctly, which is miles away. 

Illusions can’t be touched, he reasons, and so he approaches the trees. The bark feels like pine. The needles prickle, and the branches feel as solid as anything. Something about the forest seems… strange. Something other than the fact that it’s there at all. He squirms between some closely growing trunks and into the shade of the pines. Maybe this is just a small thicket, and he’ll be able to find the other side. Maybe whatever magic is humming between the trees cuts off as abruptly as it begins. 

Curan makes his way into the deepening shadows of the forest, scrambling over low branches, pushing his way through thick thorn bushes, and getting his arms and legs thoroughly scratched up for his trouble. The further he forges into the woods, the less he thinks this is a good idea. He’s about to turn around, the hovering sense of foreboding almost too much for him, when he spots a flash of color in the trees ahead. Something pink, in a bit of light struggling through the foliage. He struggles forward, and gets a look at a hip-high tangle of round, pink flowers. _Anemones_ , his mind provides, unbidden.

Before he can think much of anything else, he hears ragged breathing. He whirls, fearing… what? His thoughts fly to teeth and claws, but not the wolves that plague farmsteads every winter. Something bigger, darker. Something that doesn’t belong to the natural world. Instead of the beast he expects, a man stumbles into the light filtering down through the trees. The man is… almost as terrifying as a beast might have been. 

He’s tall and broad, wearing dark armor and a tattered fur cloak. Blonde hair hangs raggedly around a face haggard with sleeplessness and spattered with blood. An eyepatch clings to his right eye by a few threads, and he’s bleeding from at least one wound that Curan can see. The man leans heavily on the lance he holds in one hand, a nasty looking weapon that’s not made of any material Curan’s ever seen, but it seems to bear his weight well enough. He’s muttering and growling to himself, speaking incomprehensible sentences that break the silence of the forest like blasphemy. The large, intimidating individual doesn’t seem to notice Curan, a fact for which the farmer is extremely grateful, and he stumbles away deeper into the trees. 

Curan breathes, shaken by the apparition, and decides that it’s definitely time to get out of these woods. He doesn’t need to know what’s at the center, and he certainly believes that the forest is real by this point. As he turns around, the trees creak and branches crack behind him. _Yep,_ he thinks, _it’s really time to get out of here_. He clambers rapidly over trees and bushes, weaves between the tangled foliage, and every time he tries to speed up the forest seems to become more impenetrable. Panic flutters in his chest. 

He sees the light at the edge of the woods, and relief floods through him. Before he can reach it, though, something hits him from behind. He lands face-first on the ground, the air knocked out of his chest like he’s been hit by a battering ram, and pain flares hot and bright up his spine. Curan rolls over, eyes wide and white with fear. Something huge and black is looming over him, breathing silently. Its massive form is strange and unnatural, seeming to be the corporeal manifestation of the breath of dread that pervades this forest. He can’t find the air to scream. When its jaws close over his head, Curan’s last thought is that he wishes he could’ve died in the sun, instead of here under the claustrophobic arch of trees. 

***

The rumors begin to trickle in, by word of mouth from the local farmers and the Alliance soldiery. The pegasus and wyvern corps field flying scouts in twos and threes, and Shamir keeps small parties on foot circulating through the area around Myrddin for security reasons. Claude hears about the magical forest from Byleth the night that everything goes so very wrong, but he  _ keeps _ hearing about it from everyone. The next two weeks are filled with rumors of strange sounds emanating from the woods, which conflict wildly with the stories that say the forest is weirdly silent, no birds or small animals anywhere. There’s tales of farmers going missing, and of the mangled corpses of Imperial scouts being found at the edge of the trees. 

Those stories conflict too, some say the bodies are torn apart as if by tooth and claw, others say they’ve been killed with a lance. Claude doesn’t know which to believe, or whether to believe any of them, so he asks Shamir to send a scouting party. When her men don’t come back, he goes himself. 

Teach argues with him for two days, in their quiet way, but they realize they can’t stop him if he’s really set on going, so they resolve to come with him. It takes another three days of arguing before he can convince them it’s a bad idea. He’s going in alone. He can’t order any more men into those trees until he knows for himself what’s in there, and if something happens to him, Byleth can’t fall too. They’re the only one who can complete his dreams, if he doesn’t come back out. 

So it is that he arrives at the edge of the dark, ominous forest with a small contingent of soldiers and a very grouchy Professor, who is still giving him the Disapproving Face. That expression used to spur him immediately towards whatever chores he was neglecting, back in his school days, but it’s been five years and he’s the leader of the Alliance now; he can survive the blank stare of utter disappointment. Maybe if he keeps telling himself that, he’ll stop being able to feel their eyes boring into the back of his head. 

Claude enters the quiet forest on foot, leaving his wyvern with the capable lieutenant of his battalion. Carrying Failnaught in one hand, he works his way through the tangled undergrowth, quickly disappearing from sight. He feels the weight of the eerie silence seeping into him, causing his shoulders to tense as if someone is still watching him, even though he knows it can’t be Byleth. 

After a minute or so of struggling, he comes upon a patch of trampled bushes and broken branches. There are scraps of bloodied cloth and…  _ is that bone _ ? He shakes his head, squinting in the dimness despite the sunlight filtering down through the trees.  _ Something certainly happened here, _ he thinks to himself.  _ And it wasn’t pleasant. Something lost a lot of blood… _

Then, abruptly, he hears something creak and break behind him, and he whips around, Failnaught raised and arrow knocked before a single thought can form in his mind. The relic hums to life in his hands, orange glow illuminating the black beast just feet away. How could something that huge move so quietly through these trees?! Claude realizes he’s holding his breath, but the beast before him doesn’t seem to react, just standing there. Looking at him. 

He exhales very carefully. The creature isn’t scared of Failnaught. Given more than a moment of panic to examine it, Claude realizes that this isn’t the same kind of beast that Miklan Gautier became when he used the Lance of Ruin. It’s more like…

_ A black pine forest, a fine mist raining down, Teach to his left and Hilda to his right. Marianne, one hand extended, the glittering remnants of an Aura spell fading as the beast before her topples to the ground. A deep, ruined voice whispering “thank you” as the body of the creature dissolves, leaving only human bones and a sword he’s seen in old illustrations. Blutgang.  _

He looks more closely at the beast’s eyes. Palest blue. Kind, tired eyes. 

He recognizes those eyes. 

“Marianne?” Claude breathes

The beast regards him for another long second, before turning and retreating just as silently as it had come. He eases down his bow and scrambles to follow it– _ her _ . Somehow, following Marianne through the trees is easier than forging his own path had been. The forest seems to open a way for her, and as long as he keeps close, he doesn’t have to fight his way through the tangled, thorny underbrush. When he’s following her, the feeling of being watched fades into nothing. Maybe she’s the only thing in these woods, or at least the most dangerous thing. If so, the missing farmers and soldiers…

They arrive, at length, in a clearing. The hill is almost unrecognizable, covered as it is now in red anemones. He can still see the remnants of the ballista poking up at the top, scattered weapons and pieces of shorn-off armor peeking out of the flowers here and there. Some charred wood, what’s left of the platform that once covered the hill, is still visible amongst the petals, but by and large this place has fully returned to nature. 

And in the middle of all of it, as if perfectly preserved by some strange caprice of the goddess, is Hilda. She’s lying with her hands crossed neatly over her chest, hair brushed back and tied up into her ponytail, armor laid to one side. Her shirt has been rearranged so that Claude can hardly see the jagged hole torn by the sword that killed her, but there’s nothing Marianne could’ve done about the bloodstains. Were it not for those, Claude might imagine for a moment that she could sit up and greet him. She might chastise him for staring, and laugh at her own joke. His chest aches with wishing that that were possible. 

A soft, shimmering sort of sound draws his attention to his right, where the beast he’d been following had stopped at the edge of the clearing. As he watches, a strange sort of light plays across the creature, and when it fades, Marianne is standing there. Wearing the same sweat-stained clothing she’d fought in, looking tired and sad, she regards him with those cauliflower blue eyes of hers and waits for him to react. 

To break the silence seems more unthinkable than blasphemy–Claude’s done blasphemy before, it’s not the worst thing in the world. So instead he sets aside his practiced words and simply looks back. He lets more of his real feelings show on his face than he ever has with anyone but Teach, lets Marianne see the pain and the fear and the loss. Hilda was his best friend, and he might have married her, if they’d both survived the war. He’d invited her to meet his parents. He’d been planning to tell her who he really was, sooner rather than later. He’d hoped she might accept Khalid, might feel for him the way she felt for Claude. He’d wanted to achieve his dream with her by his side, as a friend or maybe as more than that. Now she was dead, and a part of his dream had died with her. 

Marianne looks away first. He knows how she felt about Hilda, and he wouldn’t be surprised if she knows his sentiments as well. They’d both known that Hilda didn’t think of Marianne that way, and part of Claude had always hurt for his friend. She looks towards Hilda’s body now, lying cradled by her favorite flower. When she speaks, it’s quiet, but still jarring. 

“I couldn’t save her,” she says, and her voice is like heartbreak. “I couldn’t save her, and I couldn’t die. I tried. Instead I became what I always feared. Now that I’m a beast… I can protect her. Like she deserves.” 

Claude sucks in a breath, the corners of his eyes pricking with traitorous tears, and he nods. “I get it, Marianne. I loved her too.”

***

Byleth paces, just outside the line of trees. He’s been in there for almost two hours. Should they go in after him? The sun has passed its zenith and is heading for the horizon again, and he still hasn’t come out. They  _ need _ Claude. They can’t do the job that he does. He thinks they’ll just pick up the armies and the bitchy Alliance nobility and carry on without him if he dies in these obviously cursed woods, but they’re just not cut out for it. They don’t have the social skills, the connections, the lines of influence and power. They’re just a ratty mercenary who caught a lucky break. 

They know the pacing is agitating the men, but they can’t bring themself to stop. Ten steps, and turn. Ten steps, and turn. Maybe the fool is just hung up on some thorns, twenty feet from them, and they can’t hear him through the clearly magical silence that hovers over the trees like some sort of mystical haze. Ten steps, and turn. Maybe he got eaten by whatever’s been killing Imperial soldiers, and won’t ever come back out, and they’ll get stuck dealing with Count Gloucester by themself. That would be an appropriate prank for Claude to pull. If he was going to die, it would be at the  _ most _ inconvenient time, when the Count was breathing down Byleth’s neck to win some decisive military victory and earn his support and Lorenz was too embarrassed to help since that tea date when they’d almost kissed. Ten steps, and turn. 

A creaking sound from the woods, and Byleth whirls, one hand going to the Sword of the Creator at their hip. Then Claude is stumbling out of the trees and they’re rushing to catch him, waving off the concerned soldiers that approach. He might need a moment of vulnerability, and he certainly won’t let himself have it if there are soldiers hovering. He looks down at them and they know they were right when he rests a hand on their shoulder and for almost a full second there’s no expression on his face at all. Just that deep-eyed, shocky look Byleth had long ago learned to associate with mercenaries who’d seen too much too young. To see it on Claude, who Byleth knows hasn’t been  _ that _ kind of young since he was less than ten years old, is worrying. 

“Claude?” They ask, keeping their voice gentle.

He shakes his head, and tears his gaze from their face to survey the soldiers standing politely just out of easy earshot. He forces his expression into something grim but less terrifying than that blankness, and straightens his shoulders. 

“I’m alright,” he lies. Byleth nods, because he doesn’t need them to call him on it right now. “Let’s get back to camp.” He turns to the soldiers. “No one is to enter the forest from now on without explicit orders. Spread the word to any of the local farmers you’re in contact with.” 

Several salutes later, they’re headed back to the Alliance camp, and Claude and Byleth are discussing how best to contact what’s left of the Kingdom forces in their palisade further north along the Airmid river. Byleth volunteers to fly up and see if any military order at all remains, though they suspect not, judging by the rumors of Dimitri’s death and the general descent into chaos of the Kingdom’s nobility. 

“The word is that Rodrigue Fraldarius and Dedue are holding it together with their teeth. I’ll go find Felix and see if he’ll let me kick his ass while he tells me what’s going on. Sparring always was the only way to get information out of that boy.”

“No,” Claude shakes his head. “I need you with me. Constance’s weird magical spy bugs have picked up some new intel on Edelgard’s troops and we have to plan our response. I do agree Felix is probably our best point of access, though. He’ll actually know what’s going on and his sense of loyalty is skewed enough that he might share. We’ll send Leonie, the two of them had some sort of mutual respect thing going on before the war broke out. Let’s see if we can use that to our advantage.” 

Byleth nods and they spend the rest of the flight back to camp in relative quiet, listening to the flap of wings and the nervous chatting of the men. When they get there, Byleth bullies their onetime student into the command tent and kicks out the guard. They need a moment with their fearless leader, and he needs a moment alone. 

“Alright, spill it. What did you see in there?” they demand, sitting him down on a camp stool so they can loom over him a little bit. He quirks one corner of his mouth as he notices the deliberate positioning, but the amused light quickly fades from his eyes. 

“Marianne,” he answers simply, looking down at his hands. “She’s… changed. Like Maurice was when we found him in Edmund territory. Whatever magic she used to try to save Hilda, it created those woods and turned her into a beast. Maybe not forever, because when she took me to the center of the forest, she turned back into herself. But, Teach? She’s got Hilda’s body in there, and she’s perfectly preserved. It’s been two weeks. I’ve seen enough death in this war that I know a two week old body should  _ not _ look like she’s just asleep.”

Byleth hums a concerned confirmation, hitching one hip over the edge of the war table and leaning a hand back on it. “No, even if there aren’t little forest creatures to disturb her, she shouldn’t still look almost alive. You don’t think…?” They leave it hanging.

He shakes his head. “No, she’s dead. There’s a stillness that you don’t get with the living.” That haunted look returns to his eyes as he glances up at Byleth. “She’s gone. But I’m not sure Marianne knows that. She’s been protecting those woods with deadly force. The only reason I’m here, and not in pieces on the forest floor, is that she knows me.” 

“So what do we do?”

“If I knew that, I wouldn’t be  _ sitting here _ ,” he says, a frustrated note clawing its way into his voice. “I can’t think of how to help her. Heh,” a bitter little huff of laughter at his own expense, “some Master Strategist I am, right?”

“Stop that,” Byleth says firmly, slanting a look at him. “You’re a brilliant strategist. Nobody knows what to do when their friend turns into a black beast. Look at what the Ten Elites did.”

That wins another huff, more genuine. “True, true. We could always react worse. Alright.” Claude sits up straight and nods to himself. “So, we get ourselves together and open communications with the Kingdom. Let’s see if we can’t make contact with the Empire too, if only to warn them about the woods. Maybe Edelgard will see that it’s not the best idea to keep throwing troops to their deaths if she knows what’s in there.” He pauses, considering. “Then again, maybe she’ll send in a larger group to try and kill Marianne. We’ll have to be careful what we tell her, but hey, what else is new.” 

Byleth nods and slips back off the table to offer Claude a hand up. He takes it, his so much larger and warmer than theirs, and they pull him to his feet. He looks down at them for a moment, and a smile enters his eyes, but doesn’t touch the rest of his face. Byleth knows he’s objectively handsome, and has always felt drawn to Claude, but they’ve never wanted to kiss him. Standing close like this, they worry for a moment that he might be thinking along those lines. However, he lets go of their hand and turns away, heading for the tent’s entrance. 

“I’ll go start on a letter to Edelgard. Will you find Leonie and send her out? I’ll ask my corporal to bring my dinner to my tent, don’t worry if you don’t see me in the mess.”

They watch him duck out the tent flap and consider the tensions and high passions of battle, strategy, and war. They’d often worried if there was something wrong with them for feeling very little of it, when they were younger. Finding out that it was Sothis’s influence, and that perhaps they never would feel that intensity, had been a revelation. They’d been able to stop worrying and accept their lack of emotion, and that had been that. Now they wonder if there’s something else they’re missing.


	4. Of Monsters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which two monsters meet, and maybe find some sort of redemption.

A beast stalks through the forest that had once been a field; a beast made of skin and muscle, blood and pain, steel and bone. It is trailed by ghosts. The ghosts of the lost, the loyal, the men and women who had died to save a beast unworthy of their sacrifices. They cry in the night, keeping the beast from sleep, howling for revenge on those who had harmed them. The beast promises them whatever will allay their pain for a few moments. The beast paces the forest, pleading with them to let it rest. 

_ Fire, consuming a carriage. A swordsman in blue, flames licking up his calves, standing with his blade protecting the beast. The beast is small, and cannot defend itself, but this brave young man with dark hair and amber eyes will save it. He will die, burning, for a beast. _

Sometimes, fools in red and silver armor approach the beast, speaking words as if it is supposed to be able to understand them. They die beneath its lance, like the vermin they are, and the beast walks on. Sometimes, the pain in its body drives the beast to its knees, but the ghosts are always louder when it isn’t walking, so it gets up and walks on, endlessly driven by the voices in its mind. It remembers a time when it had a name. When someone had spoken that name in a gentle tone. But that was long, long ago now, and all it remembers is a harsh, disgusted voice calling it-

_ “Boar,” the swordsman in blue spits, amber eyes flashing. “You pretend to be a man, but I know what you are. I’ve seen you kill. You enjoy it,” he snarls. There is despair in his eyes, right alongside the hatred. The beast has disappointed him. He’s made a great sacrifice to protect it, and it’s disappointed him.  _

It remembers watching the voice’s owner fall beneath the swooping hooves of a falcon knight. The beast had killed, torn the pegasus from the sky and impaled the knight on its lance. It had been good, the taste of blood and steel in the beast’s mouth and the blissful numbing cold of its crest pulsing with power. 

_ “Felix!” The redhead in the black armor swinging out of his saddle and kneeling in the hoof-churned bloody mud. “Help me get him to the healers!” Panicked eyes looking up at the beast, gold in brown, and the redhead holds the swordsman to his chest. It knows this man, but it watches, uncomprehending, as he struggles to stand. “Dimi-” _

A sound in the underbrush, this time not the voice of a ghost. It turns, and regards a creature not unlike itself. This other beast-creature-monster is larger and has better teeth, but no lance and no ghosts. She must have alerted the beast to her presence on purpose, because it has noticed her moving silently around the forest before. It knows this is her forest, and should she wish it, she could probably make it leave. It would give her a fight, but she is big, and the beast knows itself to be wounded, whether it chooses to feel the pain or not. She watches it, with sad blue eyes.

_ A boy with blonde hair and sad blue eyes, standing in a golden frame, moves when the beast does. Its reflection, surely, though it doesn’t remember looking this youthful. A rap at the door, and a deep voice. _

_ “Your Highness?” _

_ Dedue, come to make the beast eat or sleep, no doubt. It isn’t sure where the name comes from, but it’s sure this is correct. It doesn’t reply, continues looking at the boy in the mirror. He isn’t the beast yet, but it’s there, lurking beneath his surface. It will gain ascendence soon. The boy just doesn’t know it–he doesn’t know what the beast must do for their ghosts. Because both of them know the ghosts. _

Another twig snaps, and the beast returns to the present. The monster is turning away, and it can tell she expects it to follow. Since it has been wandering her woods, and it has no better idea of where to walk, it does so. She leads it past the edge of its self-imposed circuit, around and around the edge in a patrolling arc. Leads deep into the center of the forest, her own unmarked territory, where the beast wouldn’t dare venture on its own. Its instincts know better than to intrude upon the hunting grounds of larger predators. Still, in her wake the beast knows it’s safe to enter.

It follows her to a clearing, the first sight of the open sky it has seen in days _ weeks months years _ and stops at the edge. She shimmers, and becomes a girl. 

_ Standing in a multicolored shaft of sunlight beaming down from stained glass windows, head bent in prayer, she looks like a statue of a saint. Blue braids and soft cloth, textures illuminated and picked out in shades of amber and emerald. The boy from the mirror approaches her, ignoring the slight pain in his side, in his head, and she turns at the light sound of his step on the stone. He is drawn by the coriolis of her motion as her skirts swing gently and he comes nearer. _

_ Beauty. Features delicate and tense with worry, but still so flawless. He speaks her name, and a flash of pain in those azure eyes makes him want to crawl to her. Nothing should give her pain, certainly nothing from this boy who will one day be a beast.  _

_ “Oh. Dimitri.” Her voice is as soft as rose petals, and twice as fragile.  _

Her voice is real. 

“Dimitri, do you hear me?”

The beast looks at her, uncomprehending. Its ghosts hiss. 

_ You think you deserve the gentleness of her? The healing of her eyes? You are a beast, a wild boar, a thing of pain and hate and steel. You will only stain this beautiful girl black and bloody with your mangled hands. She has already lost so much. Who are you to take from her what little she has? _

It turns to leave, as it knows the ghosts are right. A little hitch of breath stops it, and it looks back over its shoulder. Tears in her luminous eyes. Something the beast has done upsets her? Its ghosts shriek with laughter, because of course it has already hurt her. Its very presence is a blight on this world, existing only to inflict pain until it finally brings them the head of That Woman. 

“Dimitri,” she says again, and oh how it aches in all that it is to hear her voice. A living voice, after months alone with the dead. The voice quavers, breaks on her next words. “Do you hate me too?”

That is enough to drive sound from the beast’s through, and it tries to speak to her. All that emerges is a cracked gurgle, but it turns back and falls to its knees before her. She looks down at it with those eyes filled with oceans, and it crawls as it wished to all those years ago, stops at her feet. It remembers there are ways to communicate beyond words, and it shakes its head. 

_ No, I don’t hate you. How could I hate you? You are the lucky charm of a boy long dead, who made him feel alive again, if only briefly. You are the only one in the world I could believe understood that boy’s aching, the only other one who had felt the pain of being the one left behind, and yet didn’t hate him.  _

The beast prays she can understand what it cannot say. It has never been good with words, not even when it was still a boy, but she understands beasts without words all the time. Perhaps she will be able to see. 

A single tear rolls down her cheek. It falls off her chin, and time slows as it drops, gleaming rainbow-hued in the sunlight, to land with a slight spatter on the beast’s upturned face. She reaches out, as if on instinct, to brush it away, and it is the silent, soft press of her fingers that jolts the beast from its reverie. The ghosts wail in its mind, laughing and sobbing and screaming, chastising it for thinking itself worthy of that softness. It tears away with a broken cry, and stumbles away again into the darkness of the trees. There is nothing for it, nothing but revenge to allay its ghosts. They will not let it rest until it is done.

Enough self indulgence. The beast must gather its lance and prepare for battle. Must find its strength. Must..

Must…

...

The beast collapses, less than ten meters from the sunlight. 

***

When Dimitri pulls away from her, Marianne fears the worst. That despite his shaking head, he really does loathe her for what she’s become. But she watches the blind way he rushes back into the trees and realizes he’s just a panicked wild animal now, wounded and starving. Before he passes out of sight, he runs headlong into a tree branch and falls to the ground, which galvanizes her into action. She’s never been able to see anything hurting and leave it to its fate, and madmen are no exception. 

Clinging to what makes her human, that compassion, Marianne leaves the edge of the clearing and goes to him. She knows the way the forest moves out of her path to let her do this is not natural, but she’s avoided thinking about it so far, and she can keep doing so. She doesn’t have the strength to move him unaided, so she calls on her crest. It is slow in coming, but the power arrives, filling her with the energy she needs to drag Dimitri back to the edge of the anemone field. 

She lays him out on his back and begins unfastening his armor, hands working methodically. It’s more complicated than standard Alliance make, so she isn’t as fast and practiced as the last time she’d done this– _ hands shaking, blood making everything slippery, HILDA DON’T LEAVE ME– _ but it shouldn’t be much harder, armor is all fundamentally similar. The clasps that hold his heavy fur cloak in place are half torn out of their sockets, and she can tell he’s been yanking the thing loose from every thorn bush and reaching branch it catches on. The breastplate is some strong, composite steel, black and textured from whatever the blacksmith had forged into it, and she sets it aside carefully. 

The chain shirt is somewhat more trouble, as she has to fight it off over his head, and she tries not to catch his long, matted hair in the links, but that’s easier said than done. He doesn’t react to the pulling beyond a few feeble motions, though. His mouth forms words, a name perhaps, but no sound issues from his mouth. She’s always thought him interesting, but rarely had the chance to really look at him without him looking back. Always watchful, back in their academy days. Careful who was watching him. Much like Claude, in that way, though Dimitri always had Dedue. Claude had–

Marianne peels the cloth of Dimitri’s shirt away from his chest with a healer’s detachment (though the part of her that is still a young, naive woman blushes) and finds a wound left to fester. A long, painful looking gash across his chest, bumping down over visible ribs, and digging into his side. Whatever blade made this wound, it wasn’t normal steel, because Marianne can see the black tendrils of something cursed or poisoned reaching out from the edges. She shakes her head at the foolish man before her. He is a king. He could have gone back to his people and gotten this healed the day it happened. 

So why hadn’t he? Why had he stayed in a forest fit only for monsters and black beasts? This man, who had given her the hope that maybe she wasn’t alone in feeling that she shouldn’t have been the one to live. This man who had risked his much more important life for her on multiple occasions, who had apologized for upsetting her though he’d done nothing wrong, who had called her lucky and made her laugh. He could’ve left. It had been at least twelve full days since she had called up the forest. He’d had plenty of time. And yet he stayed, wandering her woods like a wounded wolf. 

She’s seen him kill Imperial soldiers, both in the battle and since, in her woods. He was like a force of nature. She understands why there are those who call him the Tempest King. But when he’d crawled to her, the look in his eyes was the same as it had been all those years ago, when he’d come upon her praying for death and had apologized for interrupting. She knows the story, of course, of the Tragedy of Duscurr. But what horror could have happened there, and in the years since their academy days, to turn that earnest boy into a killer like that? 

Marianne breathes a sigh. She supposes he’ll either tell her, or he won’t, but until he wakes up, she can at least…

A guilty glance towards the clearing. Hilda lies, still sleeping peacefully, in the center. She’s beautiful. Marianne doesn’t deserve to look at her, not after her failure to protect her. She turns her face back to Dimitri. At least maybe she can help this one. She tries to think of a faith spell, to heal the wound in his chest, but the magic doesn’t come. The Goddess abandoned her long ago, Marianne knows, but she had hoped the power to save a king might still exist within her body. Perhaps not. 

She stands. If she can’t heal him, the least she can do is feed him. She turns from the clearing and feels the change take her, as her body shifts and morphs into something bestial, horrifying. The shape her soul always knew it should be. She stretches her four legs, her strong neck, her tail. This is the creature in the back of her mind, the thing that Blutgang sang with. It’s always been a part of her, and she’s always run from it. No more.

She heads back into the trees to find the berry bushes and the little spring that have been sustaining her these two weeks. When she gets there, she’ll force herself to take on the human shape again and carry some water and food back to her guest, as much as it pains her to leave her true form for the one she’d pretended she deserved.  _ It is important to show hospitality _ , the faint memory of a voice–her father?–tells her. So she sets out to do so. 

***

“And Leonie, I swear to Sothis if I find out you went into those trees-”

“Alright, alright, I get it!” She shoves Byleth hard in the shoulder, and they stumble a step away. This earns her a glare. “Don’t go in the woods! There’s spooky monsters in there. I’ve heard! I’m not stupid. I won’t go in alone.”

“That’s not what I-”

“Or at all! Goddess, you’re fussy today.”

Byleth heaves a sigh and relents. “Sorry, Leonie. I’m just pissy because Claude won’t let me go with you. I don’t like sending any of you off by yourselves, you know that.”

Leonie rolls her eyes. “It’s not like we’re still your students or anything. You’re officially my employer now, you have to start letting me take risks sometime.”

“I know,” Byleth says miserably, and the agitated note in their voice coaxes Leonie down from the towering irritation their nagging had built up. 

“We know you only act like this because you care about us, Professor,” she allows with a little smile. “Honestly, it makes me feel better to know how much you worry. It means I don’t have to, you know?”

Byleth makes a face at that, and Leonie almost laughs. “If you aren’t worried, I haven’t taught you nearly as much as I thought I had. Going almost alone into enemy territory to meet with someone who might or might not even still be alive…”

“If you start in again, I’m going to have to actually get mad,” Leonie warns. “Then I’ll have to apologize when I get back, and it’ll be really awkward.”

This quip draws a rare smile out of Byleth. Leonie counts a win for herself. “Alright, alright. Get going before one of us says something the other can’t forgive. And Leonie?” They take her arm and look her dead in the eyes, something they very rarely do. “Be careful.”

Leonie reads genuine fear in the tension of her professor’s shoulders, the hard clutch of their hand on her arm, the way they force eye contact. She nods, and meets them eye-to-eye, as an equal. “I will.”

They let her go, and she mounts her horse. It’s time to go see Felix again.

***

The beast awakens. It is alone, but not cold or wet. The ghosts are shrieking for it to get up and seek the head of That Woman, and so it struggles upright. Something is different. Its armor is missing. A beat of panic grips the beast’s chest as it thinks it must have been captured, but then a voice gentles the fear from its heart. 

“Dimitri, you’re awake.” 

It looks up, vaguely remembering that it once answered to that name. The woman in blue– 

_ A swordsman in blue offers a hand, smiling down at him. His voice is warm and his eyes are full of affection.  _

_ “Don’t worry, Dima, you’ll get it soon. You almost had me that time!” _

“-something to drink,” she is saying. She holds out a flask, and the beast takes it. Water is beading on the sides of the container, and realizing the depth of its thirst, the beast begins gulping the liquid. 

“Slow down!” 

It slows, obedient to the tone of authority. Its ghosts wail that it doesn’t deserve such care, and it believes them, but how is it to communicate that it is unworthy?

“Now eat some of this,” her voice is still soft, but carries a note of iron in it that broaches no discussion. It has the faintest idea that once, long ago, another woman spoke to it with that same inflection. She’d been wearing white and blue, and her hair was short and silky, and the beast had still been a boy. She’d scolded him for saving the shining girl astride the pegasus, and the girl had come by later to repeat the same words. The beast smiles at the memory, before remembering it does not deserve such indulgences. 

_ You are less than useless to us, _ its ghosts scream at it.  _ You lie there letting someone tend to your wounds while you should be avenging us. We died for you, you worthless, good for nothing, self indulgent–  _

“Dimitri, eat.” Delicate hands are pushing something against the beast’s lips. It opens its mouth to protest and a berry slips in. Indignantly, it closes its mouth again, and the burst of cool liquid on its tongue stuns it silent for a long moment. It cannot taste the berry, of course, its ghosts took that sense as payment for its dawdling long ago, but the sudden debilitating pain in its stomach makes it reconsider sitting still for long enough to eat at least a little. 

Out loud, the beast speaks to its ghosts. It is good to be able to hear its own voice again, if only to remind it that it is still alive. 

“I must eat if I am to serve you,” it reasons. Its voice comes out gravelly from disuse, barely intelligible. It persists. “I cannot kill for you if I am dead.”

_ A deep voice urges him to eat, to rest. “You cannot serve anyone if you collapse from exhaustion and malnutrition, Your Majesty.” Big hands press into his shoulders, guiding him towards a bed that is not his own.  _

_ Familiar warmth spreads through him as the shining girl holds him by the arms and looks up into his face, her expression pleading. “Dimitri! You’re driving yourself into the ground! You’re no good to anyone if you’re dead!”  _

_ The redhead comes up behind him, draping his cloak around his shoulders as he stands staring up at the sky on the balcony of his room. “Hey, if you don’t lie down soon you’re going to fall down, and trust me when I tell you, that’s not very fun on these flagstones.” _

_ And there, the swordsman in blue, sweating, with his hair tied back, glaring up at him. “Put that lance away, boar. Have you been denying yourself again, as if that’s going to help anything? Eat, drink, sleep, and train. You’re useless otherwise. Get out of my sight.” _

“Eat,” another berry is pressed against the beast’s lips, and it– _ he _ , the memories breathe,  _ you are a man, not a thing _ –eats. He eats as many as she feeds him, and the gnawing pain in his gut relaxes bit by bit. He drinks again from the flask she offers. The ghosts sit with him now, whispering encouragement. 

“Eat,” the voice commands again, and it’s back to the berries. He must grow strong, to bring them the head of That Woman. He must become their weapon, and this girl before him will help. She doesn’t seem perturbed when he talks to his ghosts. She even nods, sometimes. When he looks at the swordsman in blue, she looks too, and it’s almost like she can see him. 

Maybe this girl is a ghost as well, another who died for him that he didn’t even honor with proper mourning. Though, if that’s the case, he cannot imagine why she should be feeding him and caring for him. She should be howling for revenge like the others. 

“Dimitri, do you remember who I am?” She asks very gently. Nothing like the tormented shrieks that have been with him since That Woman revealed herself. 

He thinks, trying to recall where she died for him. He struggles to recall for so long, he worries she’ll think he’s ignoring her. But she waits patiently, the hem of her dress stained dark purple from the berries she’s still holding there, and watches him with those blue, blue eyes. She begins to blur as his good eye fills with tears from trying so hard. He cannot remember her. He shakes his head.

“Can you speak to me, or only to the dead?” The question comes without accusation, only curiosity. 

He considers this. “I can speak… to the ghosts. Are you one of my ghosts?”

She shakes her head. “No, I’m alive,” she says.

“Then I can speak to the living, as I can speak to you.” His voice is still harsh, filled with more bite than she deserves, but it is all he has.

A small smile comes to her lips, despite all. There’s something special about her smile, something that he stores away to cherish, when the dead are snarling at him next. “That’s good. I’m glad, Dimitri.”

His brow furrows. The next words take a long time to come. “Why do you call me that?” 

She looks surprised, and replies immediately, “because it’s your name.”

He shakes his head at this. “No,” he tells her, not unkindly. “That was the name of the boy in the mirror. He died long ago. I am only a remnant, twisted up, unfit for anything but revenge. A beast, like he always said.” He gestures towards the swordsman in blue when he says this last part, hoping she’ll understand. 

She makes a low sound, considering his words. “Are you the only one left?” she asks, after another period of silence. 

He nods. “I failed them, and they died. It should have been me, but I was left behind. To get revenge. It must be.”

The girl tilts her head towards the sun-soaked clearing, and he turns to look. “I failed her,” she says. He sees the young woman sleeping on the hill, surrounded by beautiful flowers. He sees her hair, the axe lying next to her in the petals, and for a moment he sees another girl entirely. 

_ White, straight hair. Black and gold uniform. Red cape and leggings. Neutral purple eyes–was she always so cold? A familiar dagger at her belt, lying in the field outside Garreg Mach, looking up at the sky. Beside her, grinning, a brown-skinned boy in yellow with a small braid in his hair, green eyes alight with mischief. They look at the boy in the mirror and see a potential ally, don’t see the beast beneath. Not yet.  _

“Her name was Hilda,” a real voice jerks him back to the present. “I loved her, and I failed her. Does that sound familiar?” He winces, and the girl continues, “Oh, I’m sorry. I know how that sounded. I didn’t mean to be cruel. Just forget I said it, please.” She sounds so miserable, he has to say something. 

“Not at all,” the phrase comes to him from far away. “You’re right. The swordsman in blue… he died for me. I was small and weak and he saved me. The way he died…” He squeezes his eye shut, but it just makes the vision clearer. 

_ Flames, licking at the legs of his uniform, pain on his face, but he glances back, he offers a reassuring smile, and that’s when the spell hits him. Black fire engulfs him and a rictus scream mars his face. The boy cries out and reaches out a hand to try to save him, but there’s nothing he can do as the swordsman collapses, curling in on himself to try to escape his torment. _

He opens his eye. “No one should have to die like that.”

She looks back at him, and nods her understanding. “I’ve never been good with words,” she echoes his thoughts, “but I wish I could say something to help. For now, just eat. Maybe walk in the sun a little.”

“Will you walk with me?” he asks. It’s suddenly important to him that he not be alone. With her present, the ghosts are satisfied to wait. They’re quiet, for the first time in years. She hesitates, and then nods. He stands and holds out a hand to her. When she takes it, he pulls her to her feet. The two of them take a few steps into the clearing, until they’re standing in direct sunlight. The beast’s ghosts follow them. When he closes his eye against the brightness, something within him seems to shift. 

“Dimitri,” a familiar voice says, and it’s not the girl’s. He opens his eye, and the swordsman in blue is standing before him. He wears his uniform proudly, and a small smile plays across his thin lips. This is so unlike his ghost that the beast almost takes a step back, but the girl’s grip on his hand tightens and he stays put. Stays in the sun of the clearing, which warms his face, his bloodstained body, like a benediction.

“You absolute fool,” the fondness in his tone takes the sting out of the words. “You really think I’d want revenge more than anything? I admit, I wouldn’t mind seeing the one responsible for your father’s death suffer for it, but like this?” He shakes his head. “Look at you. You’re barely standing. Wounded watching out for my crybaby little brother, and still chasing the wrong killer. You’re a mess.” 

The beast blinks rapidly, trying to clear the haze of tears from his eye. “Glenn,” he manages to say, and this gets him a real smile from the ghost. 

“There you go. I knew you remembered me. Don’t go getting me mixed up with Felix, it’ll only make us both mad. He’s turned into quite the little hellion, hasn’t he? And you just keep running yourself onto his sword, letting him hurt both of you. Honestly, I thought you were smarter than this.” 

“How-?” He chokes out, stunned

“How is this possible?” Glenn asks, amusement and irritation vying for ascendency on his face. “Ask the little charmer next to you,” he jerks his chin towards the girl. “She did something powerful in this clearing. Opened a hole straight through the sky.” 

The beast looks down at the girl next to him, who is staring at Glenn with her mouth slightly open. She seems even more shocked than he is to be seeing the ghost. 

“I… I-” she stutters. 

“It’s alright, none of us really know what’s going on either,” Glenn shrugs, “but I figured I’d take the opportunity to come tell Dima what we actually think about his suicidal quest.”

“No one has called me Dima since…” the beast trails off, eye still wide on Glenn. 

“Since Felix stopped, when you were fifteen, yes.” Glenn finishes the sentence for him. He shakes his head. “It’s almost like you didn’t listen in church, when they told you the dead watch over you from beyond. We’re with the Goddess, sure, but we didn’t lose interest in the people we care about. Speaking of which..” he turns, and a gleam of sunlight seems to solidify behind him. 

“Dimitri,” a deep, warm voice greets him, and when the bright light fades, another man is standing in the clearing. One with blonde hair, blue eyes, and the Crest of Blaiddyd on his chestplate. 

“Father,” he takes a step forward, eye widening, and the girl at his side releases his hand. He crosses the clearing in a few strides, and his father gathers him into his arms. The embrace is warm, like hugging a sunbeam, and the ghosts in his mind go silent at last as a laugh rumbles through the solid chest he’s pressed against. 

“This is more difficult than the last time,” Lambert smiles at his son. “You’ve grown so tall. Rodrigue always said you’d be bigger than me. I wish I could give him the gold I owe him for losing that bet.”

Dimitri just stares at him for a few long seconds, his heart squeezing in his chest. He cannot recall the last time he felt this joyful and free. His face hardly knows how to shape itself, delight a foreign expression to him. “I’ll pay him myself when I next see him,” Dimitri promises, his voice sounding strange to his own ears. Lambert’s laugh rings out this time, and he crushes his son in another embrace. 

***

Marianne watches Dimitri with a faint smile.  _ He deserves this _ , she thinks.  _ He’s been through so much. I’m glad he gets to see his father again _ . 

A part of her aches, but she knows her faith is burnt out. The goddess won’t be sending her any relief. It’s not as if she’s earned it. She’s truly glad, though, as she sees sunbeam after sunbeam solidify into men and women Dimitri greets by name. Knights and family members, people who call him cute nicknames and squeeze him in their arms. He’s crying, she can see even from here, but no one scolds him for it. They’re happy tears, anyway. She’s glad she made him drink enough water that he can cry. 

“Hey Marianne,” a voice calls, and she turns towards the sound on instinct. Hilda, smiling her cheerful smile, stands a few feet away. She waves one hand, the other tucked behind her back, shoulders leaned forwards slightly and knees together in that cute little “I’m just a delicate girl” pose that she does so often. Marianne freezes, then wrenches her eyes back to the hill, where she can still see Hilda’s body, cradled in the flowers. She looks back. Hilda’s still there. 

“I know it’s a little weird, two of me being in one place and all,” she says apologetically, “but I couldn’t figure out how to get rid of the gross dead version, so I guess it has to be this way.”

Marianne is speechless. She opens and closes her mouth a few times, unable to say a word. 

Hilda’s brows knit together and she comes a step closer. “Hey, are you okay? I mean, I get that this is spooky, but I let you see all Dimitri’s buddies first, so I wouldn’t scare you quite so badly. Do I need to go?”

“N-no!” Marianne squeaks out finally, closing the distance between the two of them and grabbing one of Hilda’s hands to prevent her leaving. “Please! Don’t.”

The grin returns, and Hilda squeezes her hand back. “Alright. I’ll stay. But there’s a couple of other people who wanna talk to you, so I can’t hog all your time, okay?”

“Who?” Marianne asks, still a little too stunned to put two and two together. 

“Well,  _ them _ , of course!” Hilda gestures over Marianne’s shoulder, and she whips around to find her parents standing there. Tears well up in her eyes, and she understands abruptly what Dimitri must be feeling. She shoots another look at Hilda, who makes an encouraging gesture with her free hand, and flies across the clearing to throw herself into her father’s arms, then her mother’s, eyes streaming the whole time.

“Mother! Father!” She weeps into their shoulders. “I’m so sorry! I’m so, so sorry!”

“Don’t be,” her mother tells her, voice just as gentle as she remembers, one hand rubbing soothing circles into her back. “We love you. We’re glad you survived. We’re so  _ proud _ of you, Marianne.”

“Never forget that,” her father agrees, one hand still warm on her shoulder, his eyes shining down at her feeling like absolution. “We’re so proud that you grew up and found a way to help people, my love. We couldn’t be happier. Watching the woman you’ve become has been our greatest joy.”

Hilda crosses the clearing to join them, putting one delicate hand on Marianne’s back. “I don’t blame you either, Mari. You did everything you could. Besides, now I get to see this place, which, by the way, is so pretty I could cry. You figured out how to let us all come back and tell you everything’s okay. I’m proud of you too.”

Marianne weeps, wrapped up in the arms of the people she loves most in the world, and for a moment, she feels the invalid stirrings of something that might be called  _ peace  _ making a home in her chest. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so this was inspired by two things, a tumblr post about a healer going nuts when their lover dies and just slamming every healing spell they have, and a really angsty marihilda art that I saw on Pinterest of all places, and the idea possessed me and I did nothing else for like a week until I had this the way I wanted it. Thanks so much for reading and please please shoot me a comment, I will love you forever, thanks!


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